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Recursion (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-27-11 10:02 PM
Original message
Gibson Guitars Under Attack By U.S. Justice Department

Source: Daily Markets

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz was a guest yesterday on The Dana Show and explained what led to the raid this week at two Gibson facilities where armed federal agents seized guitars, wood and company records, forcing Gibson to send hundreds of workers home. Due to the disruption in production at four factories, the company lost $1 million this week.
In the radio interview, the Gibson CEO first pointed out that this is not the first time the company has been subjected to a government raid. In 2009, the government seized $500,000 of Gibsonís property, but the company was never charged with any offenses and Gibson is now suing the government to get its property back.

The current allegation is that Gibson has obtained illegal, partially finished, wooden guitar fingerboard blanks from India. Under Indian law, wood products have to meet certain minimum ďIndia contentĒ requirements before they can be certified for export. Then the exported wood and documentation from India has to be cleared by U.S. Customs. In this case, all of the legal requirements by the Indian government were met, legal paperwork accompanied the wood to the U.S., and the materials and accompanying paperwork were then approved by the U.S. government before delivery to Gibson.

But now the government is apparently claiming that according to its peculiar interpretation of Indian law, Gibsonís fingerboard blanks donít have sufficient ďIndian content,Ē and the guitarmaker is in violation of Indian law.

As a guitarist, Gibson has undergone some dirty dealings since the current CEO has been running things. Prices have increased, quality has DECREASED, they've been involved in dirty dealings with this whole wood fiasco (which has been an ongoing issue in the guitar community for some time now, I suggest reading MyLesPaul.com's forums sometime), they're rated near the bottom as far as top companies to work for (#1 as far as this 09 HufPo survey goes http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/worst-companie... ).

Orville Gibson would be ashamed of what has gone on in his once prosperous company.

Tarheel_Dem (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Aug-28-11 12:23 AM
Response to Reply #26
37. What do politics have to do with lawbreaking? Destroying someone else's environment...

for your musical enjoyment shouldn't fall into the realm of politics. The responses here are quite disturbing as DU used to be concerned about the environment. At least they pretended to be during the oil spill, and when the terror from Alaska was hanging out of helicopters shooting innocent animals. Should we only enforce the laws that impact you personally? :shrug:

Hoyt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Aug-28-11 01:14 AM
Response to Reply #37
45. Republicans are more likely to do this kind of chit -- if they did something.

That's what politics has to do with it. While there are exceptions, I think liberal led corporations are less likely to do this kind of illegal and/or immoral/unethical stuff. And, this is relatively new -- the guitars I have were long before this kind of stuff. But, we don't really know what's involved yet.

I hope they enforce this law, if Gibson did something wrong. Trees are important to me. Less important, but fortuitous would be that my old wood guitars will be worth more when the cart me off to the nursing home where I can no longer sing "This land is your land, this land is my land" . . . . . .on a Gibson, almost like Woody Guthrie's.